Documentary Ethics - BRIDGE
A new documentary, BRIDGE, chronicles the last actions of six people as they jump from the Golden Gate bridge to their deaths in the sprawling San Francisco bay.
Eric Steel, the filmmaker, took advantage of the low cost of digital video and aimed cameras at the bridge every day for a year in 2004. During that over two dozen people jumped, a not uncommon number. He then interviewed people who knew the deceased, asking them what might have been going through these people’s minds.
There’s a lot to dislike about this documentary. Especially if you are San Francisco. The city isn’t too fond of people pointing out the popularity of the Golden Gate bridge for suicides. Also Steel got the permits under the pretense that he was doing a nature documentary.
PR aside, it’s an awfully creepy endeavor. It’s true that Steel couldn’t have stopped these people (he called police whenever it was obvious that someone was going to jump, so he may have saved a few lives) but at the same time he’s clearly profiting from the extreme misery of his subjects. Yes, it’s good to look at mental illness; but you can do that without the spectacle of real bridge suicides! You see pieces about sex addicts on The Learning Channel sometimes, but they manage to tell the story without amateur porn footage.
I guess what bothers me the most is that these people weren’t in a position to sign releases. Suicide may be the most private thing a person can do. I’m going to feel awful when I see this movie, and you bet I’m going to see it. And I’ll hate myself for it.
May 18th, 2007 at 6:05 am
I found the documentary extremely moving and deep. It was not done in a crude or callous way, it was informative. It also really hits home about the issues of mental illness and the lack of resources available to these people and their families for help. I don’t think the real issue is the bridge and how accessible it is to reach for the purpose of commenting suicide, the real issue is mental illness.
May 20th, 2007 at 2:53 am
I saw this film 2 days ago on the IFC channel. I had heard about this movie from a theater-goer. I found it moving, haunting, and fairly even-handed in its discussion of suicide as an existential issue. The footage of actual suicides had an oddly impersonal, abstract quality about it - it was the interviews that gave actual life and meaning to the incidents, because that was where you learned the “back story”: the actual complex, human story for which the suicide act was simply an oblique emblem or ritual “short-hand”. What the film seemed to be telling us as a whole was that suicide does not intrinsically “mean” anything in general - its individual meanings are multiple, particular, and inseparable from the lives concluded by the act.
July 8th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
I just rented the DVD. It was extremely disturbing and I can see how one might think the filmmaker is exploiting these poor, desperate people for his own purposes. But after seeing him interviewed in the “special features” section, it’s clear that he has a lot of genuine compassion and concern for those suffering from mental illness and what can only be described as the most profound despair. He wanted to shine a light on this and I think it’s about time. Suicides are swept under the rug and not talked about as a matter of policy in the media. The recurring shots of the long-haired Gene, walking up and down the bridge throughout the film, are extremely painful to watch, given his final decision and act. It will haunt me for a long time. It’s a terrible waste of life and I applaud the filmmaker for putting it out there for people to see. What’s most disturbing is seeing the people on the bridge at the times of these suicides completely indifferent to people climbing over. That chilled me to the bone.